Story Highlights

A pair of smaller downtown Nashville office buildings have new owners that plan to hold them as investments.

An out-of-town investor paid $3 million for The Realtors Building at 306 Gay St. Several local law firms are tenants in the five-story, 32,000-square-foot building, which is three blocks from the Metro Courthouse and two blocks from the new ballpark being built for the Nashville Sounds.

“It’s just under 1 acre in downtown Nashville, which is very hard to come by,” said Robby Davis, a broker with real estate firm Cassidy Turley, who along with colleague Ronnie Wenzler represented the seller, INI Holdings LLC.

In a separate transaction, Davis and his colleague Rob Lowe represented an entity with local attorney Larry R. Williams as its registered agent in selling The Barristers Building on downtown’s Union Street for $1.29 million.

The Law Office of Larry R. Williams PLLC, The Law Offices of Jack Butler, Bartlett Law Offices and sandwich shop Cafe Le Crumbs are among tenants of the two-story, 9,408-square-foot building at 327-329 Union St. The back door of The Barristers Building opens into Printers Alley.

“It’s a great investment because of all the redevelopment and growth activities in the immediate area,” Davis said.

Real estate brokerage firm Cresa Nashville is helping design and consulting firm Gresham Smith and Partners explore options for office space as its lease is set to expire mid-2017.

At the end of the process, Nashville-based Gresham Smith could decide to stay put or anchor a new office building.

The company occupies roughly 100,000 square feet of space at Nashville City Center.

Groundbreaking eyed for Larry’s County Diner

The creator of the Larry’s Country Diner variety show is targeting groundbreaking by March on a new diner on Highway 70 South in Bellevue.

Larry Black’s plans to move forward with the 6,000-square-foot building, which will seat 130 people, comes nearly two years after he bought the 3.3-acre site formerly home to a nursery and a gas station.

The meat-and three Larry’s Country Diner will offer country-style comfort food and live music. “There’ll be special nights of music, including guitar pulls and songwriter’s nights,” Black said.

The location is across the street from the former Regal Bellevue Cinema 12, which another group recently announced plans to turn into a firearms training center and indoor shooting range.